Now is the summer of our discontinued retirement.
Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones returns later this month for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Meantime, and we’ll take the good news where we can find it: Michael Keaton’s back as Batman in “The Flash,” a stand-alone DC Comics movie devoted to Barry Allen/The Flash, but periodically elevated by Keaton’s low-keyed, high-impact charisma as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Also the new Supergirl, played by Sasha Calle — she’s good. Good, and feral. The movie is OK, and less feral.
Keaton’s introduced as the scraggly, insanely rich hermit landlord and resident of Wayne Manor, pressed into Earth-saving service by two versions of Barry. Ezra Miller, whose Flash zipped around the edges of three previous DC all-star movies, portrays both Barrys, from different timelines. “The Flash,” whose hopped-up title character describes himself as “the janitor of the Justice League,” runs so fast he can revisit the past. This discovery leads to his big idea: saving his mother from a long-ago senseless murder. His father, now in prison, took the rap. Can Barry get around the butterfly effect of his meddling long enough to make his family whole?
This is the storyline, laid out by screenwriter Christina Hodson as a series of entwined spaghetti strands. (It’s the old multiverse game; see the animated “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” for better results.) Director Andy Muschietti of the demon-clown “It” films wrangles this project’s frenzied yet unwieldy story requirements, its lurches from snark to heartbreak to back-break, and back again.
The opening action sequence features The Flash plucking dozens of newborn babies out of the sky, imminent casualties of a collapsing hospital building. That scene carries an intriguing whiff of perversity. It’s more of a grabber, certainly, than the climax, which is the usual DC Extended Universe apocalyptic garbage that sits there long enough to create its own alternate timeline.
The movie works like a series of digital Post-it Notes, reminding you relentlessly of related material. Images of Henry Cavill’s Superman, Helen Slater’s Supergirl and many other fragments of the DC IP warehouse flit by as Barry navigates the timelines. In these scenes, the digital manipulation of the imagery takes on a deliberately eerie “Polar Express” retro-digital vibe. (Looks weird.) Elsewhere the more conventional digital components are the smallest and simplest: When Barry One teaches Barry Two the art of “phasing,” otherwise known as walking through walls or doors, it’s a matter of the right, vibrating wheerrrrrooomm sound design combined with an artful visual corollary and presto: It works. It’s funny and it’s effective.
So much of “The Flash” is neither, despite the budget and the effort. In their earlier, supporting-rank Flash appearances, Miller (who uses “they” pronouns) didn’t have the burden of carrying a project. Here, they do, and Miller’s performances feel strained, pushy, needy, in ways that go beyond the dictates of the storyline. Inevitably this will be interpreted as a direct result of the multiple assault and harassment allegations dogging Miller for years now. Apart from that — and that’s a big “that” — Miller’s performances here work too hard, every second. The two Barrys do feel like different characters, and their needling byplay between “slacker” Barry and nervous straight-arrow Barry has its moments. But we never get a moment’s rest, from a character who knows no peace.
Keaton isn’t the only Batman here; Ben Affleck shows up, too, and there’s a special guest star for the epilogue. But Keaton is the one who brings both effortless gravity and subtle levity to a film that, without him, wouldn’t have much of either.
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'THE FLASH'
2 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action, some strong language and partial nudity)
Running time: 2:24
How to watch: In theaters Friday
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